Bloodhounds the latest weapon against ivory and bushmeat poachers

Slobbering, panting and blinking in the dawn light, the latest weapon in the fight against poachers emerged from the belly of a Kenya Airways jumbo jet.

Packed in two wooden crates, Pension and Drastic, two six-year-old British bloodhounds, got their first glimpse of Kenya last week as they began their new lives helping to protect the country’s wildlife.

After years of decline, poaching is on the increase, and the dogs will be deployed to hunt ivory and bushmeat poachers across a landscape famous for its elephants and home to Kenya’s last remaining population of wild black rhinos.

Richard Bonham, 54, founder of the Maasailand Preservation Trust, which patrols 1.5 million acres of bush-covered hills and plains in southeast Kenya, met the new arrivals at Nairobi…

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